New Pally joining the ranksFollow

/sigh

Why am I getting sighed at?

If it's because I asked the question, well meh to you.

I understand where to put points at 70 if I just didn't choose any talents til then.

I just don't know which ones help the most while levelling.

And if it's because I'm going tankadin, well I wanted to be the holy pally, but the guy playing the holy pally in our group is already a feral druid tank on his main and didn't wanna roll another tank.

My warrior is purely for PVP (although granted I don't even do much of that) so I didn't mind rolling a tank.

Ok Jack, so what's the talent progression as I level?

Do I just go down the prot tree until I have all the talents you recommend in the FAQ?

Or is there some talent somewhere else that will help me more while levelling?

Nah, not a 5 pally alt group.

Just 5 BEs, which means a pally tank.

So yes I will be in a group basically from level 1 up. (Yes, I know this will slow down the early levelling, but with how much faster it is form 20-60, that's something we're all willing to live with)

And I'm the TANKADIN!!! So I will need to be going Prot, I just don't know where to put my first few talents for the biggest effect.

I would go standard mixed until 20 (at least 18). Even with sword and board this will work nice.

At 18 you get spiritual attunement - important tool when balancing how many you are pulling and how your mana reflects the healers (try to end battles at about the same %). You'll also begin to see situations where Protection might actually help with higher teired skills... With a Priest healing (I must presume) and then a Lock Hunter Mage and Paladin you're looking at insane killrates and a sort of inability to keep any serious agro when fighting trash reguardless.

Pre-10 you tank, 10-18 you can still tank (either SnB or 2hander) or have the Voidwalker (extremely resilient tank at this level.) I will always prefer a real tank over a pet, but for say a boss fight in RFC it would be worthwhile to have the VW main tank.

So simple roadmap -> BoM 5/5, Imp Devotion Aura 5/5 gets you to 19.
Tacticset -> BoM You/Hunter/Pet, BoW Rest(level 14), use SotC for steady dmg output or SoR for threat, Devotion Aura. Single target specialization. SoR is agro.

This is where usually you'd respec full Ret, but if you're looking to tank for a set group of 5, Prot is the way to go. You got Retribution Aura at 16, RF at 16, and Conc at 20. All you "really" need. If you're all experienced you're going to notice agro being difficult to hold on trash, but just let it slide it's not entirely important still. Good idea to balance everyone's Manapools out is to pull multis (say VC or WC pull groups of 3-5) so the Lock can DoT up a few different targets, the Mage can play with AE, and the hunter (your worst threat producer right now) can toggle through targets with each ranged attack to lessen threat output.

Respec @ 20 -> Redoubt 5/5, Toughness 5/5, BoKings 1/1
Tacticset -> BoM Hunter, BoK You/H Pet, BoW Rest (*Succy gets BoM until 26, then BoW*), use SoR for damage or SoW (level 38) for mana, Retribution Aura. Group specialization. Consecrate, Retribution are agro. Have pet taunts off, use Rain of Fire and Blizzard on groups of more than 3.

You're going to want your Mage to be a rare spec which utilizes Improved Blizzard and a Frostbite/Shatter setup -- this will dramatically help with runners. Your Lock should be Affliction for the abilities to keep up with the rest of the group (for now, heh.) Your hunter should be Marks (for Aimed Shot, Scatter Shot, TSA). You'll get Salv at 26. It may come in handy to Salv the Mage and the Warlock (depending on what you're AEing, because casters tend to be harder to hold solid agro on since they're not getting the agro off of Ret aura.)

From 20 ->
Improved RF 3/3
Anticipation 5/5
Shield Specialization 1/3
Reckoning 5/5
Stoicism 2/2
Shield Specialization upped to 3/3
Blessing of Sanctuary 1/1
Holy Shield 1/1
Improved Holy Shield 2/2
Ardent Defender 2/5
Combat Expertise 5/5
Avenger's Shield 1/1

Don't know jack past that. When you finally get Improved Holy Shield 2/2, it's a good idea to start using BoSanct on yourself, finally, as the damage output in addition to the mitigation make it worthwhile in many cases.

While basing the group's makeup around the tank seems a bit unfair, the fact of the matter is Paladins excell at a certain type of tanking which is multis - they're really no excuse to do singles and have Demo Locks and Fire Mages... or Rogues at all unless you want to maybe PVP later... but do whatever.

Hope some of that helped at least. =)

Grabbing Kings early on is helpful if you've got high level friends helping you, for which case all your other blessings are useless as Kings is the only blessing that scales with level (and gear). But for your case, not important.



which is why I love druid healers =P

It's gonna be a static 5-man group, so no higher level help.

The group make-up will be:

Tank- prot pally
Healer- holy pally
DPS- mage
DPS- lock
DPS- shadow priest

I figure with everyone being mana users, when we all ding 50 the shadow priest will be a huge help in instances as both me and the holy pally will have a lot less mana problems.

I will probably grab BoK on my way down the prot tree so the holy pally can go straight down the holy tree from level 10 on.

I'll probably go down my prot tree this way:

5/5 Redoubt
5/5 Toughness
1/1 Blessing of Kings
3/3 Imp Righteous Fury
5/5 Anticipation
1/2 Stoicism
1/1 Blessing of Sanctuary
4/5 Reckoning
2/2 Stoicism
3/3 Precision
1/2 Sacred Duty
1/1 Holy Shield
2/2 Imp Holy Shield
5/5 Ardent Defender
2/2 Sacred Duty
1/5 Combat Expertise
1/1 Avenger's Shield
5/5 Combat Expertise

That will give me 45 points in Protection and give me the 2 big tankadin skills (Holy Shield and Avenger's Shield) at the earliest point I can get them.

At this point I'll probably jump over to ret for

5/5 Benediction
5/5 Defelction

And at this point I will be level 65 and have 5 talent points left to spend with no clue where to put them.

Any suggestions?

1h weapon spec? Conviction? Divine Strength?

Edit: Just realized this was a 60 point build and the 61st point goes to fill out Reckoning. Oh, and because spelling > me.

Edited, Dec 15th 2007 10:42pm by Bigdaddyjug

i see no shield spec. in there. wich will do more damage mit than ardent defender will. you shouldn't be going under 35% health while tanking and seeing you dont get that well down the tree you can probaly drop precion for shield spec. and being only the holy pally is gonna benafit from kings you can probaly drop that as well, at least till further along i mean say lvl 28 100 int give or take some only gonna be 10 more int. where it could be another point into reckoning or one hand spec.

i would say at the least get shield spec asap.

5/5 redoubt
5/5 toughness
3/3 RF
3/3 shield spec

would probaly be my first ones to goto

Precision.

1h spec increases ALL of your damage when you have a one-handed weapon equipped, not just melee damage, which is what makes it awesome.

And you should be able to fill those out, show me the build you want to go with.

You've gotten a lot of good replies, but I wanted to add my input as well.

If I were starting a level 1 Tankadin and being grouped almost exclusively with 4 others, might as well be a tank from the start, and here's how I would progress through my talents:

10-14: fill out Redoubt
15-19: fill out Toughness
20-22: fill out Improved Righteous Fury (this is your aggro, you want it ASAP)
23 : Blessing of Kings (you have a Holy Paly as your healer so they can give you Wisdom and Salv if needed to the DPS. Before you get Sanc, this will be the best Blessing for you paired with Wisdom)
24-26: fill out Shield Spec
27-29: put those points into Anticipation (it won't make much difference in the lower levels, but you need the 3 points to get to BoSanctuary so might as well put them where you'll use them)
30 : Blessing of Sanctuary! (start using this on yourself over Kings for the increase in aggro)
31-35: take and fill Reckoning (at the lower levels this will proc a lot and be a nice boost to your aggro gain, particularly with 3 or more mobs on you at a time)
36-37: fill out Sacred Duty
38-39: start One-Handed Weapon Specialization
40 : Holy Shield! (the third talent you need to grab ASAP)
41-42: fill out Improved Holy Shield
43-45: finish One-Handed Weapon Specialization
46-49: start Ardent Defender
50 : Avenger's Shield!
51 : finish Ardent Defender
52-56: fill out Combat Expertise
57-61: fill out Benediction
62-63: fill out Improved Judgement
64-68: fill out Deflection
69-70: finally finish out Anticipation

Once you reach a certain point with your gear, Reckoning will become much less useful as it'll proc much less often. At this point I would do a respec putting those 5 points into Pursuit of Justice and Spell Warding.

Exactly :) "This point" meaning when Reckoning becomes less useful, not right at 70.